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English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and non-rhotic, depending on when the phoneme (the letter "r") is pronounced. Rhotic speakers pronounce written "r" in all positions (although many rhotic speakers omit it in French loan words where "r" is silent, such as dossier). Non-rhotic speakers pronounce "r" only if it is followed by a vowel (see "linking R"). In linguistic terms, non-rhotic accents are said to exclude in the syllable coda. This is commonly referred to as post-vocalic "r", although that term can be misleading because not all r's that occur after vowels are excluded in non-rhotic English.
Development of nonrhotic accents
The earliest traces of a loss of in English are found in the environment before in spellings from the mid-15th century: the Oxford English Dictionary reports bace for earlier barse (today "bass", the fish) in 1440 and passel for parcel in 1468. In the 1630s, the word juggernaut is first attested, which represents the Hindi word jagannāth, meaning "lord of the universe". The English spelling uses the digraph er to represent a Hindi sound close to the English schwa. Loss of coda apparently became widespread in southern England during the 18th century; John Walker uses the spelling ar to indicate the broad A of aunt in his 1775 dictionary and reports that card is pronounced "caad" in 1791 (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 47).A non-rhotic speaker pronounces the in red, torrid, watery (in each case the is followed by a vowel) but not the written "r" of hard, nor that of car or water. However, in most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed closely by another word beginning with a vowel, the is pronounced—as in water ice. This phenomenon is referred to as "linking R". Many non-rhotic speakers also insert epenthetic s between vowels (drawring for drawing). This so-called "intrusive R" is frowned upon by those who use the non-rhotic Received Pronunciation but even they frequently "intrude" an epenthetic at word boundaries, especially where one or both vowels is schwa; for example the idea of it becomes the idea-r-of it, Australia and New Zealand becomes Australia-r-and New Zealand.
For non-rhotic speakers, what was historically a vowel plus is now usually realized as a long vowel. So car, hard, fur, born are phonetically , , , . This length is retained in phrases, so car owner is . But a final schwa remains short, so water is . For some speakers some long vowels alternate with a diphthong ending in schwa, so wear is but wearing is . Some pairs of words with distinct pronunciations in rhotic accents are homophones in many non-rhotic accents. Examples in Received Pronunciation include father and farther; draws and drawers; formally and formerly; area and airier. In Australian English, which has the weak vowel merger, pairs like batted/battered or boxes/boxers are also homonyms. Syllabication interacts with rhoticity: sheer and Shi'a respectively have one and two syllables; in some non-rhotic speech, this may be insufficient for distinguishing them.
Distribution of rhotic and nonrhotic accents
Most speakers of American English have a rhotic accent. Outside of the United States, rhotic accents can be found in Barbados, most of Canada, Ireland and Scotland. In England, rhotic accents are found in Northumbria, the West Country, and parts of Lancashire. Other areas with rhotic accents include India (particularly in southern India and Maharashtra where the R's are rolled), Philippines, and Otago and Southland in the far south of New Zealand's South Island, where a small Scottish influence is apparent.Areas with non-rhotic accents include Africa, Australia, Malta, most of the Caribbean, most of England (especially Received Pronunciation speakers), most of New Zealand, South Africa and Wales. Singapore and Malaysia are also two examples of countries in Asia with a non-rhotic accent.
In Canada, non-rhotic accents are found in the Maritimes. In the United States, large parts of The South were formerly non-rhotic, but this is sharply recessive. Today, non-rhoticity in Southern American English is found primarily among older speakers, and only in some areas like New Orleans, southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia (Labov, Ash, and Bomberg 2006: 47-48). Parts of New England are non-rhotic as well as New York City and surrounding areas. The case of New York is especially interesting because of a classic study in sociolinguistics by William Labov showing that the non-rhotic accent is associated with older and middle- and lower-class speakers, and is being replaced by the rhotic accent. African American Vernacular English is largely non-rhotic.
There are a few accents of Southern American English where intervocalic is deleted before an unstressed syllable. In such accents, pronunciations like for Carolina are heard)
In some dialects of American English, people will add an to certain words through hypercorrection, the most common examples being , , and for wash, water, idea and draw. This hypercorrection also occurs in the Canadian and British English pronunciation of for khaki, although this is fading over time and many young Canadians now use the American pronunciation of .
See also
References
- Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
External links
- Chapter 7 of the Atlas of North American English by William Labov et al., dealing with rhotic and non-rhotic accents in the U.S. (PDF file)
- Rhotic vs non-rhotic, intrusive "r" from the alt.usage.english newsgroup's FAQ
English phonology | English dialects | Splits and mergers in English phonology | American English
"Rhotic and non-rhotic accents"